The present invention relates to a tire tread design, especially for use on motorcycle tires.
Tire designers are continually seeking to improve on previous tread designs to optimize often conflicting performance requirements. A primary requirement for a suitable tire tread design is adequate clearance of water from the portion of the tread which contacts the road surface, i.e., the contact patch, to prevent hydroplaning and provide such handling on wet roads. The tread design should also have minimum sensitivity to road surface characteristics and must also have an adequate braking capability under both wet and dry conditions. The tread design should also reduce tread wear as much as possible.
For water clearance, various groove designs have been provided in tire treads to remove water from the contact patch. In most cases, water removing grooves run continuously and circumferentially of the tire. Unfortunately, a continuous circumferentially extending water removing groove can cause problems when the contact patch area is relatively narrow, such as occurs in a motorcycle tire which has a narrow rounded tread profile, as the groove can engage with and be guided by longitudinally extending areas of a road surface, such as rain grooves, joints and lane marking strips. On a road surface provided with such rain grooves, joints or lane marking strips, it is possible for a water channeling groove on the tire tread to follow the road surface characteristic instead of the command of a motorcycle rider, causing problems with driver control. Turning the wheel to dislodge a tire from a road surface characteristic can be difficult, requiring a jerking turning motion which may result in an unsafe operation of the motorcycle.